Sport

Access road to SEAG Clark venues on track

MANILA, Philippines — Organizers are making sure that access to the competition venues and closing ceremony for the 30th SEA Games in Pampanga will be easier than before.

“There are several access roads (being constructed) to reach New Clark City (NCC),” said Philippine Olympic Committee president Ricky Vargas.

The NCC is a vast modern community being built in Capas, Tarlac, and will house the athletic stadium and aquatic center for the SEA Games.

Nineteen other sports will be played in Pampanga, which is known as the Clark cluster (Angeles, Mabalacat, Capas and Tarlac City).

The opening ceremony will be held at the Philippine Arena in Bocaue, Bulacan, with close to 10,000 athletes and officials from 11 nations in attendance.

The NCC will stage the closing ceremony.

To make sure the public gets to the NCC venues with ease, the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) is improving the road system in time for the staging of the SEA Games from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.

A six-lane highway with an estimated cost of P450 million is under construction and should be finished by September.

It will cover a distance of nearly seven kilometers, and will be known as the New Clark City-McArthur Access Road. It will cut travel time between the Manila North Road to New Clark City by an hour.

It is part of a project that covers a stretch of 30 kms from Tarlac City to Cabanatuan City.

“This is all being done by the BCDA,” said Vargas, who sits as vice chairman of the Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee.

Aside from the Clark cluster, there’s the Metro Manila cluster, with games being played in key venues like the Smart Araneta Coliseum, Mall of Asia Arena, World Trade Center and Philsports; Subic and Olongpao; and BLT (Batangas, La Union and Tagaytay).